


In Time

by Pom_Rania



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 02:30:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8310277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pom_Rania/pseuds/Pom_Rania
Summary: De-aged Kanan/Caleb has to deal with losing his master, his sight, and everything he's ever known.Variously angst and fluff; a set of drabbles that got away from me.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://mechanicalanakal.tumblr.com/post/151845406004/one-tiny-sniffle) post.

“Kanan?”

No response.

Ezra tried again. “…Caleb?”

The boy spun around, arms raised in a defensive gesture; sightless eyes wide, and the scar out of place on such a youthful face.

“Who are you?! How did you –” He broke off in gasping sobs again.

_Careful, gentle_ , Ezra thought to himself. He didn’t know much about his master’s past, but what he did know told him that it had not been the kindest. 

He slowly walked forward, trying to be sure that each step made noise. He broadcast “comfort” as much as he could, and hoped that the boy would receive it. “I’m coming towards you,” he softly said. “I’m sitting down… I’m roughly one meter directly in front of you.” He slid his bag along the ground, to Kanan – Caleb. “This bag has a blanket and a ration bar in it. The food hasn’t been opened, it’s safe to eat.”

Caleb felt in the bag, and clumsily opened the bar. He nearly inhaled it, and Ezra felt a twinge of pain; he remembered eating like that, on the run, never knowing when or if his next meal would come. 

Gradually, Ezra felt some of the tension from Caleb dissipate, but the grief and wariness remained. It only made sense. 

“Now, I understand this will be very confusing to you. My name is Ezra, Ezra Bridger. Can you tell me what you remember?”


	2. Chapter 2

Ezra started again, stopped; sighed, and buried his face in his hands. 

“I don’t know if I can explain this; I don’t even understand it myself. I’m just going to try my best, and open up as much as I can. You can sense that I’m telling the truth, right?”

Caleb hesitantly nodded. He still looked wary, and his eyes kept darting around as though he’d be able to see something if only he looked in the right direction.

“Years ago, about when I was born, the Republic fell and the Empire rose in its place. Don’t ask me for the history, I was too young for most of it, but the Empire is horrible and oppressive. We – my master and I and the rest of the crew – are fighting against it. My master – Kanan Jarrus, he’s training me as a Jedi – he said he sensed something when we were on a mission. He went to check it out, and that’s the last I’ve heard from him. There was an explosion, and a horrible screaming in the Force; when we went to check, we found you. We think that whatever happened, it caused Kanan’s body to get younger, and him to forget everything that had happened since he was that age. Your age.”

The boy didn’t say anything to that. It was a lot to accept, Ezra knew, even if you could tell that the other person was being honest. 

“...was it the explosion? When will I be able to see again?” Caleb whispered.

Ezra  flinched with his whole body. Who knew that one innocent question could hurt so much? No, _he_ knew; Kanan had once asked the exact same thing, when out of his mind on painkillers. (They hadn’t had the heart to tell him “never”; when he woke up next, his thoughts clear, he knew not to ask.) 

“Kanan... he....” It still hurt to talk about, think about. “We were on a....”

“You’re hiding something from me. Tell me.”

He closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear to look. “He was fighting a dark-side user, and he took a lightsaber to the face. His eyes were… he’s blind. You’re blind.”

Silence followed and it ripped his heart out all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to prepare4trouble for the line “when will I be able to see again”.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: contains zero angst.

Caleb swung his legs back and forth over the edge of the bunk, fabric swishing. Everybody’s clothes were too large for the boy; once they realized that Kanan wasn’t coming back right away, they had ended up taking some of his clothes and part-cutting, part-sewing them to fit a smaller form. 

“I was thinking,” he announced, “and I have a question.”

Like that was anything new; Ezra had had no idea that his master had once been an endless fountain of “why is it” and “what if” and “how is”, but he certainly knew now. 

He looked up from his datapad. “Oh?”

“You said Kanan was on a mission when – when I showed up,” he said, and ran a hand through his hair. “How? I can barely get around the room without having to touch everything to know where I am.”

Ezra opened his mouth, then frowned when he realized he had no answer. “That is actually a very good question,” he said. “I... I don’t know how Kanan did it. He tried explaining it once to me, but the only thing that made sense was ‘the Force’, and that doesn’t really narrow things down.”

(Of _course_ it had had something to do with the Force; it reminded him of a religious meeting he had once snuck into because he was bored as a kid, where every question was answered with the name of their deity. He didn’t even know what they had worshipped, but he could have joined in on their liturgy at any time and gotten it word-perfect.) 

Caleb turned his head to where he thought Ezra was. “I want to learn it,” he said. “There’s nothing else for me to do, and you’re ‘excused from duty’ for a while.” 

He had a point. Ezra himself was starting to get slightly stir-crazy; it had to be worse for someone unable to see, unfamiliar with the area, and not knowing any of the people. 

“I guess we can work on it... I’ll try – _don’t say it_.”

“Say what?” But the boy was grinning; for him, Master Yoda’s teachings were recent. 

“Now, if we know _what_ he could do, we might be able to figure out _how_ he did it. This is what he was able to do, and this is what he had problems with....”


	4. Chapter 4

“Ezra,” Hera said, her voice dangerously calm, “why are there six loth-cats in the cargo bay with Chopper running scans on them?”

“Because we’re studying the seventh over here and the eighth one ran away,” he automatically answered, then realized what he’d just said. “Um....”

Caleb either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “We’re working out how I can see,” he piped in, fingers still exploring the cat’s face. “Or well, not _see_ , but know where things are.”

He didn’t know whether it was because Caleb was/would be Kanan or because he was still/again a kid, but Ezra saw Hera’s expression soften. 

“How is that going?” she asked. 

Caleb’s face scrunched up. “I know that tookas use their whiskers to tell if a space is too small to fit through, so we were thinking that if we can figure out how their whiskers work, maybe I can use that to feel what’s around me. We don’t know exactly how Kanan did it, but we know it’s possible, somehow.”

Hera’s gaze took in the purring loth-cat in Caleb’s arms, the diagrams scattered around Ezra, and the mess from where one of the earlier cats had decided “be good” meant “turn the room into a comfortable nest for the humans”. 

“Good luck with that,” she said, and smiled. She turned and left, but not before sending a “we’ll talk about this later” look at Ezra. 

“You were anxious,” Caleb abruptly said. “Why?”

“Hera, she... she can get scary when she’s mad.”

“That doesn’t make sense. She seems like a nice woman, and she obviously cares about you.”

Ezra shrugged and gave up. “It’s a mother thing.” 

Caleb was quiet for a moment. “I never knew my mother,” he finally said. “I was raised in the Temple, and we were never encouraged to get too attached to our caregivers.”

“I lost my mother – my father too – when I was seven,” Ezra said. “The Empire took them, and they were just... gone. I only found out last year what happened to them, that they’d been executed after an escape attempt.”

“I’m sorry,” Caleb said in a small voice. 

“Don’t be. My family is here now.” 

“Except for Kanan.” It wasn’t a question. 

“I – yes. I miss him like you wouldn’t believe,” Ezra admitted. 

Caleb tilted his head down, like that would make a difference in what he could sense. “I would believe it,” he said. “My master... when they shot her, it felt like I was already dead but my body was still moving around.” 

It was Ezra’s turn to say it, “I’m sorry,” and he knew how inadequate it was.

“Don’t be,” Caleb repeated. “She’s apparently been dead for fifteen years, it’s time I got over –” and his voice hitched and broke.

Ezra dislodged the cat from Caleb’s lap and pulled him into his arms. “We’re both okay right now,” he said, “or we will be eventually.” 

“You sure of that?” Caleb asked, his voice muffled by Ezra’s sleeve. 

“Positive. We’ve made it this far already. Now, I think it’s time we took a break and got something to eat.”

“Okay....” He sniffled, rubbed his eyes, and got up. He held out a hand. “Lead the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't planning the angst, it just came naturally here.


	5. Chapter 5

“Someone’s at the door,” Caleb announced, and his brow furrowed up. “No – two someones. It feels like Hera, and another person I don’t recognize, but seems masculine.”

“It is indeed Hera,” she said. “Ezra, can we talk to you in private for a moment?”

Out in the hall, the other person turned out to be Rex.

“He heard about what happened,” Hera quietly said – nobody was entirely sure of whether Caleb could hear any given conversation, “but judging from Caleb’s past experience with clones... we thought it would be better if you introduced him first.”

He looked at Rex. The older man’s face was impassive, but he could detect a flicker of pain under the tightly-controlled surface. Rex and Kanan had grown close, and he was always bothered by reminders of what his fellow clones had been forced to do.

“I’ll do what I can,” Ezra said, “but no promises.”

Rex nodded. “I understand. I’ve seen what war, and betrayal, can do to a man, much less a boy. I’ll wait out here.”

“Good luck,” Hera said, and patted both of them on the shoulder before leaving.

Ezra took a deep breath, gathered himself, and walked back to where Caleb was still practicing his “whiskers”.

“You’re upset, or nervous, or worried about something,” Caleb immediately said. “What is it?”

(You couldn’t hide anything from the boy; what he couldn’t sense, an ever-narrowing category, he never hesitated to ask questions about.)

Ezra sat beside him and sighed. “I know this might be a difficult subject,” he slowly began, “but what do you know about clones?”

Caleb froze. “They fought beside us, they were my friends, and then they turned on – they turned on us without warning.”

Ezra waited. “Do you know why they did that?”

“No! No, it – it didn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense, it just suddenly happened.”

He had to be careful here. “What I’ve heard, and what I believe is true.... When they were produced, they had a chip put into their heads, by the man who became Emperor. When activated, it could control them and override any decision or feeling they otherwise would have had.”

Caleb turned that over in his head. “That’s the only thing it could be. Styles and Grey would _never..._ not if they had a choice. What did they _do_ to them?! Why?!” His breathing came shallow and rapid, tears glistening in his milky eyes. He gained control of his breath before he started to hyperventilate, but the tears spilled over down his cheeks.

“The Empire....” Ezra didn’t have an explanation. “Screw those guys.”

Caleb viciously nodded. “Screw them sideways with a spiked shovel.” He turned his face toward Ezra. “Why? I mean, why did you bring this up?”

“There’s someone who wants to see you, a friend of Kanan’s. He’s a clone – _he didn’t betray his Jedi_ , he removed his chip before the order came through. I’ve seen the scar. I remember how Kanan reacted when they first met, and... you don’t have to see him if you don’t want to.”

“Not like I could see him if I wanted to,” Caleb muttered, and gave a tight smile. “I... okay. If you trust him, and Kanan trusted him, and he obviously hasn’t killed you. That’s him outside, right?”

“Yeah.”

“He can come in.” Caleb’s fingers twitched toward the lightsaber he still wore on his side, but it stayed out of his hand.

Ezra got the door. 

“Commander... Dume. Captain Rex, 501st Battalion, sir.” Rex saluted, falling back on the familiar ritual even if Caleb wouldn’t know.

“You... I....” Emotion flickered across Caleb, both in the Force and on his face. “Ezra said you had removed your control chip. Can I s- _feel_ the scar?”

“Yes sir.”

Caleb hesitantly stepped forward with an arm extended. Ezra held his elbow and guided him to the clone, who bent over to be within reach of the boy.

“I can feel it,” he murmured, as his fingers traced the scar. “What did they do to you.... Wrinkles? You’re... old. But it hasn’t been that long.”

“My brothers and I were created to mature and age quickly,” Rex stiffly said.

“And – you have a beard,” Caleb breathed, hands still at the top of Rex’s head. “I can feel that without touching – Ezra! I got my whiskers working!” He turned and launched himself at Ezra; unprepared, Ezra just barely caught him, and only avoided toppling over because Rex supported both of them.

“I assume that’s something good then,” Rex said, obviously confused but unwilling to ask about it.

“Very! It means I’m starting to see, or not _see_ -see, but tell what’s all around me!” He twisted from where his arms were wrapped around Ezra, and pointed his face directly at Rex; eye contact was obviously impossible, but it could have happened from that angle. “You can call me Caleb. I’ll need to practice more with this, and I think you’ll be able to help.”

“Yes sir – Caleb,” Rex said, and even if the boy hadn’t been able to sense it, there was no way he could have missed the smile in his voice.


	6. Chapter 6

“Wow, you suck at this.” Caleb’s voice came from somewhere above Ezra. He pulled off the cloth covering his eyes, in time to see Caleb’s smug grin and mocking salute. “That’s three out of four wins to me, and so concludes our session. It’s really not surprising though, I’ve been fighting Separatist droids since before you were born.”

“I’m still older than you,” Ezra grumbled.

“Only in one sense of the word.”

He held a hand out to scan Ezra. His “whiskers” had limited range; he’d described it as running his hands over whatever was close, except without having to actually touch it. “You seem fine, and the blindfold is off. How far did we move this time?”

Ezra glanced over the area. “Judging from the marks on the ground, it was more or less a straight line to here, about... I’d say maybe ten meters south-west from where we started.”

Caleb tilted his head up to feel the angle of the sun, lips moving as he silently did calculations. “I know roughly where I am now. And Rex is... there. Does he have the drinks with him?”

“Looks like it.”

“Let’s go. We deserve a break after that.”

Ezra took Caleb’s arm as they walked. The boy could either consistently avoid obstacles and tripping, or he could move faster than a crawl; they had talked about him using a cane, but he preferred to work on sensing, and being led when necessary.

“Here you go,” Rex said, placing a cup in front of each of them. “Looks like you two had a good spar, although you need to step up your game, Ezra.”

“You should be better at it,” Caleb said. “From when we first started training at the Temple, we were taught to trust the Force and not our sight. We would practice with visors on. It’s been helpful, with this,” and he vaguely gestured at his eyes.

Ezra looked away. “We did a bit,” he eventually said. “But after... when we came back and Kanan couldn’t see anything ever... it just didn’t feel right.”

“What happened?” Caleb asked. “You had said something about a dark-sider, but that’s all I have.”

“...I don’t like to talk about it.”

“I can,” Rex offered, “if that’s okay with you.”

He nodded.

“Ezra, Kanan, and Ahsoka – Ahsoka Tano, I served with her in the Clone Wars – travelled to Malachor on the direction of Master Yoda. I wasn’t there for any of this, but apparently they encountered the Inquisitors there, as well as a Sith called Darth Maul. He fought alongside them against the Inquisitors, then turned on them once that threat was gone. Kanan was attacked and blinded. Ahsoka protected him. I don’t have much detail on what happened next, but at some point Darth Vader showed up. Ahsoka covered Kanan’s and Ezra’s retreat, and she never came back.”

It all sounded so simple when put like that, with only a few crucial details missing. 

“How did he recover?”

Rex looked over at Ezra. Ezra continued to say nothing.

“Slowly,” Rex answered in his stead. “We have nowhere near as much medical resource as we did when backed by the Republic, and almost everything has to be stolen or fought for. After he was first examined, they said they would probably have to remove what was left of his eyes. That did not happen, as you can feel; I was able to liberate enough bacta for treatment to save his eyes, even if his sight was irreparably damaged. He was in pain for a while, even if he tried not to show it, but I’ve fought with enough injured soldiers to know when it’s worse than they want to let on.

"Aside from the physical... he mostly stopped talking with anyone for months, after he knew without a doubt he would never be able to see again. He spent a lot of time meditating, or so he called it. I tried my best to help, but there was only so much I could do without him making an effort as well, and I had other responsibilities to the Rebellion.”

Rex sighed. “It was not a good time for anyone. I could see him slipping away from us, and there was nothing we could do. He had some good days, but he was always distant. I’ve seen it before. Sometimes after surviving a particularly horrible battle, a clone would get farther and farther from us, until he finally slipped up enough in the field and was killed. I didn’t want to lose Kanan. Nobody did. All we could do was keep him safe, and hope he would get better.”

“How did he?” Caleb asked. “I mean, I know he did, from what you’ve told me, but what happened?”

Rex looked at Ezra. Ezra looked at Rex. They both shrugged. 

“Kid, if I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t just be an old soldier.”

“I think maybe he had a vision? We’d had a pretty bad fight right before then, and afterwards we just tried to move forward. Once all the fallout settled, he started talking to everyone again, and got caught up on what he’d missed. He felt... different in the Force, more grounded, more _there_. Maybe it was what he had felt like before, I don’t know, it had been months.”

Caleb sipped at his drink. “If it took him months to recover, and he’d actually been knighted, how come I –”

“Stop,” Rex immediately said. “You can’t compare things like that. Every injury is different, whether it’s to your body or to your soul. One major advantage you have is that there’s no physical pain. Pain can break anyone. The wound is scarred, and even if it’s new to you it’s old to your body.”

“Just... I guess I wonder how he could survive all of that and still function.”

“The same way any of us do. One day at a time, one foot in front of the other, and keep on keeping on.”

“He’s still had some bad days,” Ezra added. “Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night to a blast of pain and fear from him, or he would get up but seem to have no energy. We’re there for him. And we’re there for you too, if you need it.”

Caleb smiled. “Thanks.” He finished his drink, and pushed the cup away. “Can I ask, what does it look like? The... my eyes, and the scar.”

Ezra decided to answer. “It’s not horrible, if you’re worried, just... noticeable. The scar is darker than the skin around it, maybe like a sunburn, but I’ve never actually seen Kanan get sunburned so I don’t know for sure. It goes through both eyes, across the bridge of your nose, and down somewhat onto your left cheek. As for your eyes, there’s a bit of blue-green visible, but they’re mostly clouded and pale. Sorry, I’m not that good at describing things.”

“Still more than I would know. And Ezra?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.” He stood up. “That’s enough of a break for me now; are you ready to get beaten for a fourth time?”

“No, because I’ll win this one.”

“In your dreams.”

“Bring it.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kitty!

Ezra woke to find he could barely breathe.

There was a loth-cat curled up against his face. Ah, that would explain it.

Wait what?

"So that's where you were, Scruffy," Caleb said and grabbed the cat.

Ezra blinked sleep out of his eyes, feeling like he'd missed something. "...Scruffy?"

"Yep. He or she is the tooka who wanted to make a nest for us, and I've found him or her hanging around the ship. Speaking of, is Scruffy male or female?"

"You can't tell with your whiskers?"

Caleb gave him a Look, which lost none of its intensity for being directed at his forehead. "Would _you_ want to run your hands over a tooka's crotch?"

"Fair enough." Ezra lifted the cat's front end and took a quick glance. "Female."

"Thanks."

Scruffy climbed up Caleb's torso and settled around his neck like a purring grinning shawl. He scratched under her chin.

"How did you know it's the same cat? She does have a distinctive fur pattern, dark rings around her eyes like a mask, but I don't think you can feel that."

"No, I can't. But there's a notch in her left ear." He pointed it out, and the cat batted at his hand. Her meaning was clear: keep petting.

A sudden thought struck Ezra. "Does Hera know you brought a cat on her ship?"

Caleb grinned nervously. "She said it was okay... even if she was half-asleep at the time, she still said it."

Ezra sighed. He was too young to be the adult in this relationship! "Better to tell her now than wait for her to find out. I'll bring her caf, you just hold Scruffy and do your best to look cute and innocent, and if we catch her in a good mood then she'll let Scruffy stay and everything will be fine."

"And if she isn't in a good mood?"

"Then she'll still probably let Scruffy stay, but we'll be cleaning the ship for the next few months."


End file.
